A research article recently published in MDPI Forests journal presents the LAMP tool for rapid detection of tree pathogens causing needle blight. The paper called "Rapid Detection of Pine Pathogens Lecanosticta acicola, Dothistroma pini and D. septosporum on Needles by Probe-Based LAMP Assays" provides insight into the advantages that the loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay for the rapid and early detection of pathogens L. acicola, D. pini and D. septosporum. 

Selection of kinetics showing amplification results of the LAMP assays targeting Lecanosticta acicola (a), Dothistroma pini (b) and D. septosporum (c), respectively. Source: Aglietti C, Meinecke CD, Ghelardini L, Barnes I, van der Nest A, Villari C. Rapid Detection of Pine Pathogens Lecanosticta acicola, Dothistroma pini and D. septosporum on Needles by Probe-Based LAMP Assays. Forests. 2021; 12(4):479. https://doi.org/10.3390/f12040479

These three pathogens elicit very similar symptoms on their hosts, making it difficult to discriminate one from the other based only on the morphological characteristics of the symptoms. Authors of the article, amongst whom HOMED researchers, demonstrate the application and results of using the rapid early detection tool,  estimating that LAMP-based assays presented in the article were capable of rapidly identifying these three pathogens in less than 30 minutes. 

The evidence provided in the paper shows that the LAMP assays require less sophisticated equipment and can also be deployed directly on-site using portable devices which is a considerable advantage as most of the methods providing high accuracy in the detection of the pathogen species usually requires investigation of the pathogen’s DNA in laboratory conditions and can be much more time consuming.

Read the full article here.